City expects to see fresh mass protests
JAKARTA (JP): After calm descended on the capital over the weekend, people are expecting to see mass protests demanding President Soeharto's resignation.
A student at University of Indonesia said that representatives, alumni and lecturers of dozens of universities in Jakarta and other cities would visit the House of Representatives complex this morning.
"On the next day, we'll start from our Depok campus (south of Jakarta)," a student activist of the university, Kodir, told The Jakarta Post last night.
He refused to reveal the estimated number of students participating but said the number on Tuesday would be much greater than today.
Today, the protesters are expected to leave Salemba at between 9 a.m and 10 a.m. by vehicle.
Two tents were already set up in front of the university's campus in Salemba, Central Jakarta, yesterday with a gigantic banner that reads "Soeharto step aside or be finished." (Soeharto mundur atau habis)
On Saturday, the university's leaders met with President Soeharto at the latter's residence. During the meeting, Soeharto reiterated once again a readiness to step aside, by constitutional means, if that was what the people wished.
In another related development yesterday, Moslem leader Amien Rais told Reuters he would take millions of people onto the streets across Indonesia on Wednesday, also demanding the President's resignation.
On that day, the nation commemorates National Awakening Day, the 90th anniversary of the formation of a nationalist movement against Dutch colonial rule.
The chairman of the 28-million-strong Muhammadiyah group urged Soeharto to step down to avoid a repeat of the mob violence that killed some 500 people over recent days in Jakarta.
"Soeharto will be held responsible by the people if more killings take place in the future," he told reporters.
He said he expected more than one million people to join the protest in Jakarta and half a million more in the cities of Bandung and Yogyakarta in "a kind of people's power".
Riots in Surakarta, Central Java, last week claimed at least 10 lives in the Ratu Luwes supermarket, Pasar Legi, which was gutted .
Meanwhile, antigovernment rallies still continued in major cities across the country as of yesterday. The death toll of the rallies has started to increase.
In Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, one life was lost in a protest on Saturday.
Rofinus Rate Baby, 21, a student of Medical Sciences Academy, died after failing from a moving bus while protesting.
In Medan, military officer Second Sgt. Budi Irawan Panjaitan, who was pelted by stones on Saturday, died yesterday in the hospital.
Three students wounded by gunshots during the incident were still undergoing medical treatment.
A day earlier, in West Kalimantan's capital of Pontianak, 19 lecturers of state Tanjungpura University met local council members and urged them to hold discussions with the people.
In Bandung, West Java, hundreds of people joined a mass antigovernment rally outside the governor's office.
In Pekanbaru of Riau, an on-campus rally at Riau Islamic University presented local religious leaders and artists, such as Idrus Tintin, Azlaini Agus and Fakhrunnas MA Jabbar, as speakers.
Elsewhere, hundreds of senior technical students in uniform took to the streets and marched to the City Council.
In Semarang, Central Java, a student rally planned to be held at the governor's office was canceled following rumors that rioters had attempted to join the march.
In Denpasar, hundreds of nurses and physicians of the Sanglah hospital joined a crowd of students on Jl. Sudirman in front of the Udayana University.
Thousands of other students held antigovernment rallies in Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara, Jambi in Sumatra, and Maluku in Ambon. (bsr/byg/har/21/43/37)